
.s^ 



u yjL^ ttj uuu u 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



Cp-] COMMON SCHOOLS 

L0^^ IN THE 

UNITED STATES 

COMPARED WITH 

\ THOSE IJN" EUROPE, 



REVIEW OF THE WORK OF JOSEPH KAY, ESQ., 

ON THE RESULTS OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN DIFFERENT EUROPEAN 

COUNTRIES. 



RBPVDLtSHED FROM 
^ t 

BROWNSON'S REVIEW FOR JANUARY, 1858. 



CAREFULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR. 



LOUISVILLE, KY: 

■WEBB Ss IiEVEItIl<rO. 

1858. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE, 



At tlie solicitation of several distinguislied persons in 
different parts of the country, we have decided to issue, in 
separate form, the learned and excellent article on Common 
Schools which appeared in the last January number of 
Brownson's Review. The vital importance of the subject 
discussed, the interest in its investigation which this paper 
has awakened throughout the Union, not merely among 
Catholics but also among many outside the pale of the 
Church, are additional reasons for the publication. The 
Rt. JRev. Bishop Spaldivg of Louisville, the writer of the ar- 
ticle, has kindly revised it for the present edition, and has 
added several pages of new matter, on the present aspect 
of the School Question in the United States. The signs of 
the times seem to point to a change of public sentiment 
in regard to our Common School organization, and to in- 
dicate a growing conviction of the necessity of remodeling 
it, so as to make it more conformable to the genius of our 
free institutions, and to the system for primary instruction 
which has been so long in successful operation throughout 
the greater portion of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant. 

It will be well for those who feel an interest in this all 
important subject to contribute towards circulating this ar- 
ticle extensively among their friends, who might not other- 
wise have their attention called to the interesting facts 
which it develops, on unexceptionable Protestant authority. 
As only a limited edition has been published, those who 
wish to procure a number of copies should send in their 
-orders soon. 

For terms, see fourth page of cover. 

WEBB & LEVERING. 

Louisville, April, 1858. 






u 



01 



s& 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 



The Social Condition and Education of the Peo2)le in England and Europe ,' 
showing the results of the Primary Schools, and the Division of Landed Pro- 
perty in Foreign Countries. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M. A., of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge. Barrister at Law, and late Traveling Bachelor of the 
University of Cambf idge. Lotidotl t Longmans, 1850. 2 vols. 12mo. 

The great question of the day, for us Americans, is, un- 
doubtedly, that of Common School Education. Its practical 
importance can scarcely be exaggerated. Upon the system 
adopted for the education of our children, probably more than 
upon anything else^ depends the future of our Republic. If 
"the child be the father of the man," our children will cer- 
tainly exhibit in their manhood those traits of character to 
which their young and susceptible natures were moulded 
under the parental roof, in the school-room, and in the church. 
Soon will the men and women of the present generation be 
gathered to the. tomb, and their children will take their places 
in the busy and ever-shifting drama of life ; acting out therein 
their several parts according to their previous training. No- 
thing, then, can be of greater and of more vital importance to 
our future, than the sound education of our children. 

1^0 fact in history is better authenticated than that the 
Catholic Church has been, at all times, and under all circum* 
stances, even the most discouraging, the munificent patroness 
and fostering mother of education, especially of the education 
of the poor, who have ever been her favorite children. She 
founded and liberally endowed almost all the great universities 
of Europe; those magnificent establishments which, during 
the Middle Ages, were the luminous courts of religion and 
science, of literature and the arts, and which annually sent 
forth into the most remote parts of Europe, thousands of 
highly educated young men, to become the pioneers of Chris- 
tian civilization among rude and uneducated populations. 

The benefits which the Church thereby conferred on man- 
kind—benefits which we now so largely share, without, pro- 
bably, reflecting much on their origin — are almost incal- 
culable. Without her agency, civilization would have been 
impossible. But more than this ; she was the first to establish 
Common Schools for the gratuitous education of the masses. 
From the days of Charlemagne in the ninth century, down to 
those of Leo X. in the beginning of the sixteenth, Free Schools 
sprang up in rapid succession over the greater portion of 
Europe, and generally under the shadow of her churches and 
her monasteries. Throughout the entire period which is desig- 



4 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

nated by Protestants as that of the "dark ages," Roman Pon- 
tiffs, and Catholic Bishops assembled in council, enacted laws 
requiring the establishment of such schools in connection with 
all the cathedral and parochial churches : and if these laws 
could not always be carried into effect, in consequence of the 
civil commotions which were then so frequent, it was surely 
not the fault of the Church ; for the Church was ever inde- 
fatigable in her efforts to calm down the passions of men 
which led to those bloody feuds, and to diffuse among the 
people, along with religious teaching, the elements of a sound 
Christian education. This has been freely admitted and 
clearly established by learned and enlightened men of every 
shade of religious opinion; by such men as Hallam, Maitland, 
Turner, Bishop Tanner, Guizot, the two Schlegels, Voigt, 
Hurter, and others. 

These undoubted facts must be blotted out from the history 
of the past, before the enemies of the Catholic Church can 
make good their accusation, that she is opposed to the educa- 
tion of the people. The allegation that Catholics in this 
country are not favorable to the system of Common Schools, 
as here adopted, does not at all sustain the charge ; for our 
opposition to the system does not grow out of any disposition 
to check or stifle the education of the many, which we are 
inclined, on the contrary, to promote by every means in our 
power, but it is founded on other reasons altogether different. 
It is because we conscientiously believe that our present Com- 
mon School system is grievously defective and faulty; and 
that, whether intentionally or not, it infringes our religious 
liberties, guarantied to us by the Constitution, for the securing 
of which, the blood of our fathers flowed as freely as did that 
of those who would fain force upon us their own crude and 
illiberal ideas of education. Minorities have rights as well as 
majorities; and when minorities have reason and truth on 
their side, they have even stronger and more valid rights. 

We object to the Common School system as established in 
our free Republic, — freer in everything else than in this, — 
because it compels us to pay taxes for the support of schools 
to which we cannot conscientiously send our children. The 
necessary result is, that we are forced to incur the enormous 
expense of erecting and supporting other schools for their edu- 
cation, if we would educate them at all ; and we are thus 
doubly taxed, as were our fathers, the Catholics of Maryland, 
by the Protestant majority, merely because they were Cath- 
olics !* Our non-Catholic fellow-citizens, who are vastly in 



* The atrocious injustice of this treatment of our Catholic ancestors in 
Maryland before the Revolution, is the more striking from these undoubted 
historical facts : 1, that Maryland was originally a Catholic colony, and the 
first to establish free toleration and religious liberty ; and 2, that those who 
afterwards rose up and persecuted her Catholic colonists were themselves in- 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 5 

the majority, and have the power in their hands, may make 
light of, and even deride our religious scruples on this subject; 
but we are simple enough to have a conscience, even when 
such a commodity is so very inconvenient, expensive, and un- 
fashionable, and to say boldly to our opponents, that we would 
rather lose the whole world than oifend God, risk our eternal 
salvation, or endanger that of our children. "We are even an- 
tiquated enough in our notions to believe, that it is our sacred 
duty to rear up our children "in the discipline and correction 
of the Lord," and to bequeath to them, as the most valuable 
of all legacies, good religious impressions and a sound religious 
education. This is, we are quite sure, the most important 
element of education — ay, "the one thing necessary;" and 
this essential branch of instruction is not, and cannot be taught 
in our Common Schools, as at present constituted. 

Our present system of Primary Education either ignores re- 
ligion altogether, or it teaches principles which we believe to 
be false or dangerous ; or at best, it confines religious instruc- 
tion to certain vague and unmeaning generalities, which are, 
in their practical influence on the moral and religious training 
of children, probably worse than no teaching at all. Human 
nature is prone to evil, and it constantly needs the application 
of the moral and religious curb, especially during the slippery 
period of youth. To teach a child's head, is not to educate, 
much less to form his heart. Mere instruction in reading, 
writing, arithmetic, geography, and book-keeping, will not 
train the pupil to self-denial, to virtue, and to the government 
of the passions. Such a system might do well enough for 
Pagans ; it is certainly totally unfitted to Christians. It would 
develop — and it has already developed to a fearful extent in 
this country — that characteristic element in the morals of 
pagan society, which Horace satirizes in his Ars Poetica, as the 
one most prominent in the Roman youth of his day: post 
NUMMOS VIRTUS — AFTER MONEY, VIRTUE. Our youth are prac- 
tically trained up under our Common School system, to make 
money, honestly if they can, but at all events to make money. 
They are, indeed, taught to be moral and virtuous, at least so 
far as will be convenient and conducive to the main chance; 
knowing well that " honesty is the best policy," and that a 
moral man, reputed virtuous by his neighbors, will have much 
more weight in society, and will be much more likely to make 
money and be well to do in the world than one who has not 
sucli a reputation. Religion is all very well in its way, it 
makes a man respectable in this world, besides fitting him, 
probably, for the next; but it must not sit too heavily on us, 
much less clog our progress towards wealth and worldly em- 

debted to the latter for a free home and a shelter from the persecution of bro- 
ther Protestants in neighboring colonies ! There are few instances of an in- 
gratitude so black as this, in all the annals of history. 



6 , COMMON SCHOOLS. 

inence. Is not man a progressive being, and was lie not made 
for society ? what is the benefit of a religion which represses 
our energies and keeps us behind our rivals in the race of life ? 
Religion must be adapted to the spirit of the age, or we will 
have none of it ; and to be adapted to the spirit of the age, it 
must be very elastic, very "fast," and very progressive ! 

We do not mean to say that these maxims are expressly 
taught our youth, but there is little doubt, that the tendency 
of ignoring religion, and even of the meagre and bald religious 
instruction occasionally given in our Common School educa- 
tion, lies in this worldly and pagan direction. And such be- 
ing the case, can reasonable and reflecting men wonder that 
those who have faith, and value aright the salvation of their 
own souls and the souls of their children, should be shy of our 
Common Schools, or even strongly opposed to them ? That 
the religious scruples of Catholics on this subject are well, at 
least very tetrongly founded, is apparent from the fact, that 
after paying the heavy taxes imposed by the State, they are 
impelled by their conscientious convictions to contribute vast 
additional sums of money for the establishment of such schools 
as they can safely patronize. In this utilitarian age, in which 
Mammon has far more worshipers than the living God, there 
can be no more striking evidence of a man's sincerity than his 
willingness to put his hand in his pocket, and to sacrifice his 
worldly treasures to the requirements of his conscience. 

It is all well enough to say, that religious instruction is an 
afiTair of the parental hearth and of the Church, not of the 
school-room. But if the child has received defective or bad 
moral and religious training during the whole day or week, 
how is the parent to supply the deficiency or correct the wrong 
impression at night, or the pastor on Sunday ? It is easy to 
teach children evil, or to let their passions run riot ; it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult efl:ectually to teach them good, or to remove 
bad impressions. Besides, many parents are not able or not 
willing to impart religious instruction to their children at 
home ; and even the most zealous pastor cannot always suffice 
for the proper religious instruction of all the children of his 
district, especially if these have been exposed during the week 
to other and dangerous influences. In the case of Catholic 
children frequenting our Common Schools, efifective religious 
instruction by either parents or pastors thus becomes almost 
impossible. If such Catholic children are not expressly taught 
what is opposed to their religion, and if the school-books 
which they use are not tainted with anti-Catholic prejudice 
and misrepresentations, — which is but too frequently the 
case, — they are often singled out as Catholics, and perhaps 
"foreigners," by their school companions, and sometimes by 
their teachers, and become objects of ridicule. Thus number- 
less petty annoyances are constantly brought to bear upon 
their tender minds. The result of this training is obvious. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 7 

Either they become ashamed of their religion, grow suddenly 
much wiser than their parents, and laugh at their simplicity ; 
or if they have the courage to hold out, they continue to be 
the laughing-stock of the school, and unless they have a taste 
for this species of martyrdom, they have to fly elsewhere for 
safety. 

This is no fancy sketch, nor even an exaggeration. It is a 
picture drawn from life, and rather under than overdrawn. 
Our Common Schools, as at present organized, so far as we 
are acquainted with them, are no places for Catholic children, 
who are shut out from.' them as eflectually as they would be 
by locks and bolts. Catholics are thus forcibly ejected from 
schools, which their money was extorted by law to erect, thus 
paying for what they cannot enjoy ; and this, too, in a country 
boasting above all others of its freedom. It is not our Prot- 
estant fellow-citizens then, who have a right to complain of us 
in the matter of Common Schools ; but it is we who have 
clearly a right to complain of them. It is the persecuted mi- 
nority who may justly feel aggrieved by the tyranny of the 
persecuting majority ; persecuting precisely because they are 
the majority, and under our laws have the might if not the right 
to persecute. For it is persecution, consider it in what light 
you may, to take a man's money by law, and then to refuse 
him the consideration for which his money was paid, unless 
on a condition which he cannot accept without sacrificing his 
conscience. 

In a mixed population like ours, where there are almost as 
many religious creeds as there are heads, the education of the 
people through Common Schools, without infringing their 
religious liberty, is, we freely admit, a matter beset with man- 
ifold difliculties. Yet we do not believe that these difficulties 
are wholly insurmountable. What has been done, can be 
done again ; and we are prepared to show that in commu- 
nities very. nearly similar to our own, the two things, general 
Common School education, under the auspices of the State, 
and religious liberty on the part of the difl'erent religious de- 
nominations in the State, have been so far reconciled as to 
obviate, if not all the difliculties of the position, at least the 
more glaring of those wrongs, to which we have referred 
above as existing in our own Common School system. "What 
has been accomplished and is now done under the monarchies 
of Europe, in favor of religious liberty, may surely be accom- 
plished in this free country ; unless, indeed, we are j)repared 
to admit that we are practically less free than the monarchies 
of the old world, in which case our boasted love ofjliberty 
would be all a sham. 

In order to show how the difficult problem of reconciling 
Common School education with religious liberty has been 
solved in Europe, we will furnish to our American readers a 
rapid analysis of the highly instructive and interesting work, 



8 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

the title of wliicli is found at the head of this paper. The an- 
thor, Joseph Kay, Esq., M. A., is an Englishman, an uncom- 
promising Protestant Anglican, and evidently no friend of the 
Catholic Church, or of Catholic populations. He takes no 
pains to disguise his prejudice against Catholicity; and he 
has not even learned to practice the courtesy of calling us by 
our proper name ! The vulgar nickname Bomanist is usually 
employed by him, instead of Catholic, or Roman Catholic, the 
latter of which is sanctioned and adopted by the British Par- 
liament itself, the founder of the Anglican Church Establish- 
ment to which he belongs. But though an Englishman and 
a Protestant, and notwithstanding his discreditable ill-breed- 
ing, he is generally candid in the statement of facts ; and we 
are disposed to abide by his testimony, which, for the reasons 
just named, will, we presume, be deemed unexceptionable by 
non-Catholics. His evidence is the more reliable, because 
based on long and patient investigation of the condition of 
popular education in Europe : and his statements cannot fail 
to prove especially interesting to American readers, to most 
of whom they will be new ; for his work contained too many 
candid admissions in favor of Catholic countries, and too 
many statements damaging to those which are Protestant, to 
entitle it to republication in this country, where works, to be 
popular and suitable to the market, must pander to vulgar pre- 
judice. 

Mr. Kay furnishes the following account of himself and his 
publication : 

" In 1846 the Senate of the University of Cambridge honored me by appointing 
me Traveling Bachelor of the University, and by commissioning me to travel 
through Western Europe, in order to examine the condition of the poorer classes 
of the different countries. During the last eight years I have traveled through 
Prussia, Saxony, the Austrian Empire, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, the guchy of Ba- 
den, Hanover, Oldenburg, Lombardy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Hol- 
land, as well as through England, Wales, and parts of Scotland and Ireland. I 
.undertook the greater part of these journeys in order to examine the comparative 
.conditions of the peasants and operatives in these several countries, the different 
modes of legislating for them, and the effects of these different modes of legisla- 
tion upon their character, habits, and social condition." — Vol. I. pp. 4, 5. 

The first volume of this work contains an elaborate report 
on the material, moral, and social condition of the poorer 
classes in continental Europe, as compared to that of the cor- 
responding population in England ; and the second is devoted 
to a detailed examination of the educational establishments in 
those several countries. Our business at present lies with the 
contents of the second volume. 

His statistics of Common School Education in Europe date 
back from ten to fifteen years from the time of our present 
writing ; but as it is probable that they have not since varied 
much, at least relatively, they will suffice for the purpose of 
comparison. The limits of our paper will not allow us to go 
into many details ; though these would probably prove more 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 9 

interesting to most of our readers than a mere summary of the 
more prominent facts, and of the general results, which alone 
we shall be able to furnish. 

^ We confess that we were not prepared for some of his sta^ 
tJstics in i-egard to the educational establishments of Europe. 
The following statement in particular took us somewhat by 
surprise. In point of the number of teachers and of primary 
and normal schools in proportion to the population, and, we 
may add, the perfect organization and details of the whole 
Common School system, while the German States occupy an 
intermediate position, France ranks first, and England last ! 
After ail we had heard and read of the educational establish- 
ments m Prussia, Scotland, and other Protestant countries, 
this fact, ab'iiudantly attested by figures, proved somewhat 
startling. The following table, which treats of the number of 
teachers of primary schools, and of normal schools for the 
education of teachers, in proportion to the population in dif- 
ferent European countries, will exhibit, at a glance, the rela- 
tive condition and operation of their respective school estab- 
lishments. "We extract the figures from Kay, though we do 
not follow his order, and leave out Switzerland, his statistics 
of this republic embmcing with certainty only the Canton of 
Bern.* 

" In France th« number of primary schools La 1843 wsis 59,3^3, the number of 
normal colleges for the instruction of teachers was 96, and the number of teachers 
actually engaged in instruction 75,535 ; and as the population of France in 1843 
amounted to 34,230,178, it follows that there was in that year : — 

1 Primary school in France for every . , . 558 inhabitants. 

1 Teacher for every .... , , 446 '* 

1 Normal college for every .... 356,56'!: •" 

In the same year there was in Prussia — 

1 Primary school for every ..... 653 inhabitants. 

1 Teacher for every . . .... 662 " 

1 Normal college for every . . , , 377,300 " 

" In the Kingdom of Bavaria (Catholic), in the year 1846, 
there was — 

1 Teacher for every , 508 inhabitants. 

1 Primary school for every .... 603 " 

1 Normal college for every .... 550,000 " 

"In the Kingdom of Saxony (Protestant, with Catholic 
King) there was, in the yea,r IMB — 

1 Primary school for every 900 inhabiUnts- 

1 Teacher for every ... .... 588 " 

1 Normal college for every .... 214,975 " 

^' In the Duchy of Baden (Catholic, with Protestant govern- 
ment), in the year 1841, there was — 

1 PrinmTy seh-ooi for every ..... 700 inhabitants. 

1 Normal college for every ..... 500,000 " 



* Yoh II. pp. 231, seq. and p. 477. 



10 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

It will be seen tliat, wliile Saxony has more normal schools 
in proportion to tlie population than either Prussia, Bavaria, 
or even France, she is far behind France in the relative num- 
ber of primary schools and teachers, and behind Prussia, Ba- 
varia, and Baden in the proportion of primary schools to the 
population. It is well to bear in mind, that in Saxony, the 
government is Catholic, with a large majority of Protestants 
in the population, while the government of Prussia is Ptote^s- 
tant, with about two-:ftfths of the population Catholic ; that of 
Baden Protestant, with a very large Catholic majority ; while 
both the government and an overwhelming majority of the 
people of Bavaria are Catholic. 

In regard to the Austrian Empire, our Traveling Bachelor 
furnishes the following statistics of education : 

"In 1842, the population of the Austrian Empire, inoluding Lombardy, but 
excluding Hungary, was 25,304,152. For this population 20,293 primary day- 
schools had been founded ; that is, one primary day-school for every 1,247 in- 
habitants, besides 11,140 repetition, or evening class schools. For these 20,293 
primary schools, 41,809 teachers had been appointed and salaried, each of these 
teachers having obtained a certificate of competence before being allowed to offi- 
ciate as an instructor of youth. There was, therefore, in 1842, about one teacher 
for every 600 inhabitants in the whole Empii'e of Austria, excluding Hungary, 
and rather more than two i.daohers, on the average, to every primary school."* 

He subjoins a table, from which it appears that, in 1842, 
there were in Austria— 

"Of children who ought to attend school, 249,826; of those who actually at- 
tended day-schools, 244,032 ; of those who attended the repetition schools, 108,- 
399. Total number attending day and repetition schools 342,430."f 

We leave the comment upon these figures to our readers. 
It will be seen, at a glance, that in many respects, the educa- 
tional system of Catholic France is far in advance of that 
adopted in any other European country, not excepting the 
much vaunted school systems of Prussia, and other German 
States ; and that the position of Catholic Austria, of which we 
shall speak more in detail a little further on, is also highly re- 
spectable. Of France, in comparison with G-ermany, our au- 
thor bears the following honorable testimony : 

"Vast as the efforts are which the German and Swiss States are making to 
educate their p,eo,ple, the great and minutely considered system of public educa- 
tion, which is now in operation throughout every commune in France, rivals 
them in its comprehensiverifSS's, efScienoy, and liberality, and in the completeness 
and well-considered nature of its details." J 

But what of England, of whose greatness and literary ad- 
vancement we have heard so much ? In the education and 
the social position of the masses of her people, England is, to 
use one of her own favorite sporting phrases, completely dis- 
tanced in the race by every European country which Mr. Kaj 
visited ; he, himself an Englishman, being our witness. 

* Vol H. p. 342. f Ibid. p. U^. J Ibidi. p. 408; 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 11 

While France expends annually for the promotion of popu- 
lar education two million pounds sterling, or nearly ten mil- 
lions of dollars, England expends only one hundred and 
twenty thousand pounds ! While France has 59,838 elemen- 
tary schools conducted under the auspices of the government, 
England and Wales, with about half her population, has only 
4,000 ! Not only is England immeasurably behind France 
and Austria in the matter of popular education, but also far 
behind all the German populations, whether Protestant or 
Catholic ! To come up even to the lowest standard of popular 
education in Continental Europe, England and Wales should 
have 23,531 schools, 26,500 teachers, and 41 normal schools ;* 
whereas, of normal schools, she has only 12 to 92 in France, 
and not much more than one-sixth of her fair quota of primary 
schools ! Even the schools she supports are very far inferior, 
in every respect^ to those on the European Continent, as our 
candid English Traveling Bachelor not only admits, but 
clearly proves, by facts which cannot be gainsaid. The fol- 
lowing extract contains the gist of his Report on the education 
of the people in England ; and its length will be pardoned on 
account of the great interest of the subject : 

" I will give a short summary of the present state of primary education in 
England and Wales, as collected from the Reports of her Majesty's Inspectors, of 
the Commissioners of Inquiry in Wales, of the National Society, of the Statistical 
Society, and of the City Mission ; from Mr. Redgrave's Reports, from some very 
' able articles in the North British Review, and from numerous personal inquiries 
in various parts of England and Wales. 

" 1. It has been calculated that there are, at present, in England and AVales, 
neahly eight millions of persons who cannot read and write. 

"2. Of all the children in England and Wales, between the ages of five and 
fourteen, more than the half are not attending any school. 

"3. Even of the class of farmers, there are great numbers who cannot read 
and write. 

" 4. Even of those children of the poor who have received some instruction, 
very few know anything of geography, history, science, music, or drawing. 
Their instruction in the village schools has hitherto generally consisted of no- 
thing more than a little practice in reading, writing, and scripture history. 

"5. Of the teachers who are officiating in many of the village schools, there 
fire many who cannot read and write correctly, and who know very little of the 
Bible, which they profess to explain to their scholars. 

" 6. A very great part of our present village and town schools are managed 
by poor and miserably instructed dames, f who thus seek to make a livelihood, 
and who literally do no good to the children, except it be keeping them for a cer- 
tain number of laours in the day out of the dirt, and out of worse society. 

" 7. Many of these dame schools are so wretchedly managed, as to do the chil- 
dren a very great deal more harm than good, — .by uniting miserable associations 
with the Sacred Writings, and with the subjects of the wretched instruction given 
in these schools. 

" 8. Very many of our town schools are held in small and unventilated cellars 
or garrets, where the health of the children is seriously impaired. 

" 9. If we except only the worst part of the dame schools, we have not, even 
then, 07ie-half AS many school buildings as we require for the present numbers of 
our population. 

* See Vol. II., p. 232. 

f This numerous class of wretched schools is designated in England by the 
name of Dajne Schools. 



12 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

" 10. By far the greatest part of our school buildings have only one room, in 
which all the classes are instructed together, in the midst of noise and foul air. 

"11. Many of our present school rooms have no forms and no parallel desks, — 
both of ■which arc to be found in every school room throughout 'Western Europe, — 
and in all sucli schools the children are kept standing the whole day. 

" 12. Very few of our school rooms are properly supplied with maps, books, 
or school apparatus."* 

"We miglit copy this fearful summary down to number 30, 
to which number our author carries it ; but what we have here 
given will suffice for our purpose. 

With such evidence as this, furnished by an Englishman, 
no candid man will doubt our statement, that, in regard to the 
education of her people, England stands the lowest among all 
those nations which are reputed civilized. And yet it is pre- 
cisely England which has boasted most of her enlightenment 
and civilization ; it is England which is always thrown in our 
teeth, as a convincing example of Protestant progress and 
learning, in contrast v/ith the stationary character of Catholic 
populations ; it is England which has, for three hundred years, 
been the most reckless and foul-mouthed slanderer of the Cath- 
olic Church, and of every person and thing Catholic ; it is 
England, with her ignorant, brutalized, and dowm-trodden 
masses, which, in the face of the civilized world, in the face of 
light and knowledge to the contrary, dares boast her own 
proud pre-eminence and sneer at her more ignorant and less 
enlightened neighbors, who enjoy not the priceless blessings 
of her wonderful dame schools, and of her humane and beneii- 
cent work-houses ! Yerily, she should first extract the beam 
from her own eye, and medicate the cancer which is gnawing 
at her own vitals, before rebuking her neighbors. 

Lest it should be thought that we have grown too warm in 
our indignation at such barefaced and transparent national 
hypocrisy, we will here subjoin the closing lines of Mr. Kay's 
volumes, from which it will appear that his indignation is 
scarcely less than our own ; — he is speaking of his own dear 
country, England : 

" Here, with our vast accumulated masses; with a population increasing by a 
thousand per diem ; with an expenditure on abject pauperism, which in these 
days of our prosperity amounts to £5,000,000 per annum ; with a terrible defi- 
ciency in the numbers of our churches and of our clergy ; with the most demor- 
alizing publications spread through the cottages of our operatives ; with demo- 
cratic ideas of the wildest kinds, and a knowledge of the power of union daily 
gaining ground among them ; — here, too, where the poor have no stake whatever 
in the country ; where there are no small properties ; where the most frightful 
discrepancies exist between the richer and the poorer classes ; where the poor 
fancy they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a revolution ; here, 
too, where we are stimulating the rapid increase of our population by extending 
and steadying the base of our commercial greatness ; where the majority of the 
operatives have no religion ; where the national religion is one uttei-ly unfitted 
to attract an uneducated people ; where our very freedom is in danger, unless 
the people are taught to use and not to abuse it ; and here, too, where the aris- 
tocracy is richer and more powerful than that of any other country in the world, 

* P. 461, seqq. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 13 

(he poor arc more oppressed, more pauperized, more numerous in comparison to the other 
classes, more irreligious, and very much worse educated, than the poor of any other 
European nation, solely excepting Russia, Turkey, South Italy, Portugal, and Spain.'^* 

The exception of Russia and Turkey may be all well 
enough ; but had the honest English Traveling Bachelor 
visited "South Italy, Portugal, and Spain," we think well 
enough of his candor to believe, that he would have left them 
out of the comparison. We were never in Portugal, but we 
have visited Spain, and we spent more than four years in 
" South Italy;" and, with the exception, 2>crAa/95, of the very 
worst of the Neapolitan Lazarom,-f we believe, — in fact, we are 
quite certain, — that the poor of those countries are, in every re- 
spect, and especially in point of education, very far in advance 
of the corresponding class in England and "Wales ! The poor- 
est children of the poorest Lazaroni are not half so degraded 
or brutalized, as Mr. Kay represents the children of the poor 
in almost all the cities and towns of England. "VYe regret that 
our limited space forbids us to give the passage in full. Suf- 
fice it to say, that according to his own showing, the children 
of the English poor are the most neglected, the most dirty, the 
most degraded, the most ignorant, and the most thoroughly 
brutalized little savages within the boundaries of Christendom, 
not even excepting Kussia, so far, at least, as we are acquainted 
with Russia. 

But we have already devoted more space to this branch of 
the subject than we had originally intended, and we must 
hasten on. We have yet to analyze the Common School sys- 
tems of continental European countries in their reference to 
the rights of parents, and to the still more sacred rights of 
religious liberty. 

The two great difiiculties in the way of education under the 
auspices or control of the state, are parental rights and difier- 
ences of religious belief among the population. No system 
which glaringly violates either parental rights or religious 
liberty can be logically advocated, or can permanently succeed. 
This has been well understood by most of the Continental 
European governments which have established Common 
Schools ; and all of them, with scarcely an exception known 
to us, — certainly no exception on the part of Catholic govern- 
ments, — have adopted provisions to secure those rights, some, 
indeed, to a greater, some to a less extent. In all of them, 
with hardly an exception known to us, provision is made for 
the education of the children in the religion of their parents. 
In all of them, or nearly all, separate schools, receiving their 
REGULAR QUOTA OF THE SCHOOL MONEY, are permitted by law, 
whenever the parents in any particular locality, being of 

* Vol. II., p. 538. The Italics are his own. 

f So called by English, and by some American trayelers, though they do not 
appear to be a distinct race of people. 



14 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

one religious sentiment, whether Protestants or Catholicg, 
desire to found such schools. In almost all of them, religious 
instruction — not general, meaningless, or vague, but detailed 
and full — is deemed an essential and paramount part and ele- 
ment of Common School education. Religious instruction, in 
all of them, occupies the first place in the list of branches to 
be taught ; and in all of them, a time is specially get apart for 
this highest and noblest department of education. In separate 
schools, the ministers of the Christian denomination to which 
the parents of the children belong, attend, at stated times, 
generally one hour each day, to impart religious teaching. In 
mixed schools, which are nearly equally divided, the ministers 
of the diiferent denominations of the parents of the children 
teach regularly the Catechism to the children of their re- 
spective flocks ; while in those mixed schools where there is 
but a small minority of Catholics or Protestants, the minority 
have the guarantied right to retire during the hour devoted to 
religious instruction. 

In not one of all the educational establishments of Europe, 
whether Protestant or Catholic, is there found anything ex- 
actly similar to our own system ; either in respect to compul- 
sory taxes to support a system, of which the minority do not 
approve, and of which they cannot conscientiously avail them- 
selves, or in regard to the principle of teaching either no reli- 
gion at all in the Common Schools, or of teaching one of 
which any portion of the children taught, or their parents, 
would conscientiously disapprove. In not one of them, known 
to us, is there any compulsory sectarian reading or sectarian 
religious exercise or worship in mixed schools, with the obli- 
gation on children, whose parents conscientiously disapprove 
such reading or worship, to attend the same. While religious 
teaching is made, in nearly all of them, a co-ordinate and es- 
sential part of Common School education, to be imparted by 
their respective ministers to children of different religious per- 
suasions, without directly or indirectly shocking the religious 
feeling or infringing the religious rights of any, no one, not 
even in Germany, is compelled by law to send his children to 
any school of which he disapproves, provided he be able and 
willing to educate them elsewhere, either in separate schools, 
allowed and supported by the government, or in other good 
schools of his own choosing. 

With these wise and liberal provisions, carried out in good 
faith, the European parent need have but little apprehension 
that his child will be seduced from the faith in which he 
wishes him to be reared up. It was reserved for our own free 
and happy republic to adopt a system of Common School edu- 
cation which makes no provision for religious instruction, else- 
where deemed so essential by all reflecting and candid Chris- 
tians ; which will allow of no separate schools receiving their 
quota of support from the School fund, created by taxing all 



Common schools, 15 

alik^, and which says to its Catholic citizens t " You will 
either send your children to our schools, where they will be 
taught no religion^ beyond a few vague generalities, and will 
be practically brought up infidels, or will be trained up to sneer 
at the religion of their parents ; or else you will pay your taxes 
for supporting these schools from which you can derive no 
possible benefit unless at the sacrifice of conscience, and then 
you may, if you choose, tax yourselves again to found such 
schools as your over-delicate conscience may find necessary ! " 
There is, we venture to say, no educational establishment in 
all Christendom, outside of our own free country, which is 
based upon so unjust and detestable a tyranny of the mjyority 
over the minority as that which marks our own ! That of some 
of the Protestant cantons of Switzerland,^ — another //-€€ coun- 
try, — comes, perhaps, the nearest to ours ; but even Switzer- 
land, so far as our information extends, is not guilty, at least 
to the same extent, of our tyranny over conscience in this 
matter of education. This will be seen a little farther on. 

We do not pretend to say that the educational establish- 
ments of continental Europe are perfect, or that they are even 
all that they profess to be, or what Mr. Kay claims for them. 
But no candid man who peruses attentively the minute account 
of them furnished by our author, can doubt for a moment that 
they are, in many respects, far superior to ours, especially in 
the vital point of much better securing to all the sacred rights 
of religious liberty. This is particularly the case in those 
European countries where Catholics are in the majority and 
have the political preponderance, as in France and Austria, 
Speaking of the great success of the Common Schools on the 
European continent, in contrast with the neglect of popular 
education in England and Wales, Mr. Kay employs the fol- 
lowing language — which we extract both as a specimen of his 
religious bigotry, and as an evidence of what we have just 
stated : 

i 

"And let it be remembered, that these great results have been attained, not- 
■withstanding obstacles at least as great as those which make it so difficult for us 
to act (in England). Look at Austria, Bavaria, and the Prussian Rhine Provin- 
ces, and the ^yiss Cantons of Lucerne and Soleure. Will any one say, that the 
religious difliculties in those countries are less than those -which exist in our own ? 
Is Roman Catholicism in these countries free from that arrogance and haughti- 
ness, which are, at the same time, the causes and effects of a vain belief in hu- 
man infallibility, and which stimulate opposition instead of conciliating opinion ? 
Is the sectarianism of the Jesuits of Lucerne, or of the priests of Bavaria, of a 
more yielding character towards the Protestant ' heretics,' than that of one Pro- 
testant party in England towards another ? And yet, in each of these countries, 
the difficulties arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all 
their children have been brought under the influence of a religious education, 
without any religious party having been offended."* 

Here it is not only admitted, but expressly stated, by an un- 
exceptional, because prejudiced witness, that in the principal 

* Vol. II., p. 3. The Italics are his own. 



16 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

Catholic governments and communities of Germany and Switz- 
erland, the religious rights of the Protestant minority are care- 
fully respected, so that all the children receive " a reUgimia ed- 
ucation, without any religious party having been ofiended/' 
Coming from the quarter it does, this testimony is invaluable, 
Tlie simple fact it vouches for is worth more than a volume 
of defense against the stale, but oft reiterated accusation of in- 
tolerant despotism against the Catholic Church wherever its 
members are in power. It is a triumphant refutation of the 
charge that Catholics crush the religious liberties of the dis- 
senting minority wherever they are in the majority, and have 
the power to do so. It is a remarkable fact, on the contrary, 
that in such Catholic governments as France and Austria, if 
an}^ complaint could be justly made against the educational 
systems there adopted, it would rather come from the Catholic 
majority than from the veiy small Protestant minority. It has 
been often alleged, and with some grounds, that the religious 
interests and rights of the overwhelming Catholic majority in 
these two countries have been not unfrequently sacrificed to 
an overweening desire on the part of the government to secure 
the religious liberty of the non-Catholic minority ! This was 
particularly the case in France, until the present illustrious 
Emperor of the French, by a stroke of the pen, destroyed the 
odious University monopoly, and made education /ree /* and 
it was, we believe, the case also in Austria, to a less or greater 
extent, until the accession of the present young but vigorous 
and enlightened Emperor, and the establishment by him of 
the Concordat with the Holy See. 

Mr. Kay furnishes the following account of the educational 
system in France : 

" It was long a question of great doubt araong French legislators, in what 
manner the difficulties arising from religious differences could be overcome. 
The different religious parties in France were aa earnest in their demands as 
the Church and dissenting parties in England at the present day. 

" The Chambers were called on to decide : 

" Whether they would establish separate schools for all the religious sects 5 
or — 

" Whether they would establish mixed schools where no religions education 
should be given, and where the children of all sects should be instructed to- 
gether ; or— 

" Whether they would allow the parishes to found their own schools, and 
elect teachers educated in the religious belief of the majority of the parish- 
ioners ; merely requiring, as an indispensable preliminary, that the children 
of the minority should be allowed to avail themselves of the secular instruc- 
tion given in the schools, and to leave the class-rooms when the religious 
instruction was given there ; on condition, however, that their parents pro- 

* Reference is here made to the new law securing freedom of education, estab- 
lished by the French Chambers in 1851, while Louis Napoleon was still President, 
He cheerfully sanctioned the equitable enactment, which the friends of free edu- 
cation, as opposed to the University monopoly, had sought ia rain to have passed 
during the reign of Louis Philippe. Much credit was justly awarded to Louis 
Napoleon at the time for his powerful influence in bringing about this important 
change in French legislation. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 17 

Tided in some other manner for the efficient education of their children in 
their own religious belief. 

" The Chambers felt, that to adopt the first course, would be to leave the 
education of many children totally unprovided for, in the cases of those com- 
munes where there was not a sufficient number of any one sect in a commune 
to enable the government to establish a separate school for them ; that, to 
adopt the second alternative, would be to leave the most deeply important 
PART OF EDUCATION either wholly neglected, or at least most indifferently pro- 
vided for ; and that to deny the master the liberty of giving practical religious 
education in the school, was to deprive him of the most powerful means of 
improving tlio character of his children. They, therefore, adopted the third 
alternative, and resolved to place each of the normal colleges of the different 
departments, and each of the primary schools of the different communes, under 
the management of a professor or teacher, selected from the most numerous 
sect of the department or commune, in which the college or school was situa- 
ted. They further determined that the parents who differed in their religious 
belief from the director of the college, or from the teacher of the school, should 
have the power of requiring their children to absent themselves during the 
periods of religious instruction ; on condition, however, that such parents pro- 
vided elsewliere for the religious education of their children. 

" The importance of the religious element in the education of the children, 
is put forward in great prominence by the French statutes and regulations on 
the subject. In the words of the statute of April 25th, 1834, upon the ele- 
mentary schools : 

" ' In all the divisions (of each school), the moral and religious instructions 
shall rank first. Prayers shall commence and close all the classes. Some 
verses of the Holy Scripture shaM be learned everyday. Every Saturday, the 
Gospel of the following Sunday shall be recited. On the Sundays and Fast 
(Feast ?) Days the scholars shall be conducted to Divine Service. The reading 
books, the writing copies, the discourses and exhortations of the teacher, shall 
tend continually to penetrate the souls of the scholars with the feelings and 
principles which are the safeguards of morality, and which are proper to in- 
spire the fear and love of God.' 

" And M. Guizot in his letters, which he addressed, while Minister of Pub- 
lic Instruction, to each of the teachers of France, says : 

•' ' Among the objects of instruction, there is one which demands of me par- 
ticular notice ; or rather it is the law itself, which, by placing it at the headjj 
of all the others, has committed it more especially to your zeal ; I refer to 
moral and religious instruction.'* 

A little farther on, lie gives the following sketch of the 
mechanism and manner of working of the French Common 
School organization : 

" Each department of France is subdivided into arrondissements, and each 
arrondissement into communes or parishes. Each commune is obliged by 
law, either alone, or in conjunction with one or more neighboring communes, 
to support at least one elementary primary school. Where the population is 
large enough to require more than one school, it is invited to establish another. 
If it neglects this duty, the Government is empowered to interfere. The means 
of instruction are thus placed within the reach of every parent throughout the 
Kingdom (Empire) of France. If the government had left it to each commune 
to please itself, whether it would establish schools or not, the result would 
have been similar to the one which is still disgracing us (in England). Many 
of the communes would never have put themselves to the expense of erecting 
schools and supporting teachers. 

" I shall explain how the communal organization is arranged, and how the 
difficulties arising from religious differences have been overcome : 

" 1st. In communes, in which all the inhabitants belong to the same reli- 
gious sect. 

* II. 404, seq. 



18 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

" In each of these cases, a committee is formed, composed of the mayor,, 
president, cure or religious minister, and one or two of the inhabitants of the 
commune, who are nominated by the committee -of the arrondissement, of 
which I shall speak presently. The latter members of the committee are 
elected for three years, and are then re-eligible. 

" 2J. In communes where there are several of the religious sects, which are 
recognized by the State (i. e. Romanists, (!) Protestants, and Jews). 

In each of these cases the inhabitants may please themselves, whether they 
will establish separate or mixed schools, and whether they will have a sepa- 
rate committee for each school or one central committee for them all; but they 
are obliged by law to adopt one of these courses.' "* 

It will be remarked, that tlie provision for separate schools is 
here expressly made by tlie French law ; and this by an over- 
whelming Catholic majority in favor of a very insignificant 
dissenting minority ! We commend this fact to the attention 
of those excessively liberal and excessively sensitive advocates 
of Common School education in this free country, who, follow- 
ing the lead of their preachers, are constantly inveighing 
against the despotism and intolerance of Catholic countries, 
and who make such an outcry, or rather raise so dismal a 
howl, about liberty and the Bible being in danger, whenever 
we, the small Catholic minority in this country, venture tim- 
idly to ask in our behalf the same ordinary privilege of sepa- 
rate schools, which the Catholic majority in France have freely 
accorded, without even the asking, to the mere handful of 
French Dissenters ! Truly, those who make the most noise 
about their love of liberty, are not always its truest or most 
consistent friends. Their loud professions are often belied by 
their actions. 

Catholic Austria, whom it is so fashionable to denounce in 
this country as the very head and front of civil despotism and 
iSk religious intolerance in Europe, is not a whit behind Catholic 
France, either in the perfect organization and efficiency of her 
educational system, or in the liberality towards Protestants 
which marks her Common Schools, not merely in their theory, 
but, what is far more to the purpose, in their practical work- 
ing. Says our candid, but bigoted, Englishman : 

" It is a fact, of which the old government of Austria may well be proud, 
that throughout the vast territorial extent of that part of this immense empire, 
which is composed of the regal province of Bohemia, a part of Poland, the 

.great province of Moravia, the ancient territories of Syria and Illyria, the 
provinces of Dalmatia, Carinthia, and Carniola, the Duchies of Upper and 
Lower Austria, and the Tyrol ; varying, as the people of these provinces do, 
tin character, habits, and religion, composed as they are of Romanists and 
Lutherans, Moravians, Greeks, Jews, and Unitarians ; every child between 
the ages of six and ten, and almost every child between the ages of six and 
thirteen, is receiving daily instruction in the truths of revelation and science. 

-and in the duties of a citizen and a man. I shall show very briefly, how this 
great result has been obtained. Every parent, then, in the Austrian empirf', 
is obliged by law to satisfactorily prove {sic) to the inspector of the district in' 

'which he resides, that he is either educating his children between the ages of 

• six and twelve, at home, in an efficient manner, or that he sends them to some 
school. "f 

* P. 410, seq. f II. 315. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 19 

In the following passages our author treats of the manner 
in which the difficulty growing out of religious differences in 
this vast empire is overcome ; — they will speak for themselves, 
and will need little comment : 

" In each province of the Austrian empire, whose population is wholly 
Romanist, the superintendence and direction of the parochial schools are com- 
mitted to one of the priests, who is chosen and appointed by the parochial 
majiistrates, in conjunction with the district overseer, of whom I shall speak 
presently. This religious minister is, in these cas'^s, empowered and required 
isy law to superintend and direct the religious and secular instruction given 
in the schools ; to take care that no person is appointed teacher who is not a 
man of religious principles and correct habits ; to enforce the regular attend- 
ance of all the children in his parish ; to stimulate their industry, and report 
on the progress of the schools, teachers, and scholars to the overseers of the 
school district in which the parish is situated."* 

" The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the Austrian system is, 
the great liberality with which the government, although so stanch an adhe- 
rent and supporter of the Romanist priesthood, has treated the religious parties 
who differ from itself in their religious dogmas. It has been entirely owing 
to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects in Austria, nor 
the great differences of their religious tenets, have hindered the work of 
the education of the poor throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has 
been demonstrated that such difficulties may easily be overcome when a gov- 
ernment understands how to raise the nation in civilization, and wishes 
earnestly to do so. In those parishes of the Austrian empire, where there 
are any dissenters from the Romanist Church, the education of their children 
is not directed by the priests, but is committed to th'e care of the dissenting 
ministers. These latter are empowered and required by government to pro- 
vide for, to watch over, and to promote the education of the children of their 
own sects, in the same manner as the priests are required to do for the educa- 
tion of their children. In each county a dissenting minister is chosen by the 
magistrates, as the general superintendent and inspector of the education of 
all the dissenters of his county. This minister, accompanied by one of the 
county magistrates, is required to visit and inspect all the dissenting schools 
in his county, at least once in every year, and to report thereon to the county 
magistrates. He is also required and empowered to enforce the building of 
schools in districts inhabited by dissenters alone, but unsupplied with schools ; 
to oblige all the dissenters of his county either to send their children to some 
school, or to educate them efficiently at home ; to punish them when they 
neglect to conform to the educational regulations; to take care that the 
children of dissenters who attended Romanists schools, receive regular reli- 
gious instructions from some minister of their own sect, and to oblige the dis- 
senting ministers to give religious education to the children of their own 
sects."f 

Again : 

" Whenever the minority of any parish, whether Romanists, Protestants, or 
Jews, desire to establish a separate school for their children, and to support 
a teacher of their own denomination, they are at liberty to separate from the 
majority to provide alone for the education of their children; but by one 
means or another, each parish is obliged to provide for the education of all 
its children, and each householder to contribute his share of the funds neces- 
sary for this purpose ; and whether separate or mixed schools are established, 
all are made subject to public inspection, so that the public may know the 
real character of each establishment ; that no demoralizing school, or inefficient 
or immoral teacher, may be allowed to exercise a baneful influence upon the 
youth of the empire, and that the instruction in useful and civilizing knowi- 

* II. 318-'19. t n. 322-'3. 



20 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

edge may not be sacrificed in any degree to the dogmatical teaching of the dif- 
ferent sects."* 

Here is a system of Common School education under the 
control of the State, which is probably more perfect and less 
open to objection than any with which we are acquainted. As 
a system, we greatly prefer it to that of France ; it is very far 
superior to that of any other country in Europe, whether 
Catholic or Protestant. It distinctly recognizes and practi- 
cally carries out the two great principles which we believe 
essential to all sound education in a mixed community, com- 
posed of Catholics and Protestants — 

1. The teaching of religion as the first and most essential 
department of education ; and, 

2. The perfect guaranty of religious liberty, which, in this 
system, is fully reconciled with religious differences among the 
population. 

In its working, this admirable system practically results in 
the establishment of separate schools ; or if, in a few cases, 
the schools are mixed, they possess all the advantages of sep- 
arate schools, so far as the securing of full and thorough reli- 
gious education by the children of different persuasions is 
concerned. Would to God that our loudly boasting Prot- 
estant preachers and religionists, who are in the habit of 
sneering at Catholic countries and vaunting their own more 
enlightened advocacy of religious liberty, would learn a lesson 
from that Austria which they denounce as the ally of despot- 
ism, and the sworn enemy of freedom, particularly of all reli- 
gious liberty. And yet Austria is fully three-fourths, if not 
four-fifths, Catholic ! 

As we have above intimated, the principle maintaining the 
necessity of full religious instruction, as the most important, 
aye, the essential portion of Common School education, as well 
as that guarantying the liberty to establish separate schools for 
the dificrent religious persuasions, is common, to a greater or 
less extent, to almost all the educational establishments of 
Europe, whether Catholic or Protestant. Truth, however, 
compels us to say, and we have the authority of Mr. Kay for 
our statement, that those provisions so essential to the securing 
of religious liberty, with its concomitant blessing of sound re- 
ligious education, are much more ample and more effectual in 
Catholic than they are in Protestant European countries. Of 
Protestant Prussia, our author says : 

" Disputes about separate or mixed schools are unheard of in Prussia, be- 
cause every parish is left to please itself which hind it will adopt. One of the 
leading Roman Catholic counsellors of the Educational Bureau, in Berlin, 
assured me that they never experienced any difficulty on this point. 'We 
always,' he said, ' encourage separate schools when possible, as we think reli- 
gious instruction can be promoted better in separate than in mised schools ; 
but, of course, we all think it better to have mixed schools than to have no 

* II. 324. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 21 

schools at all ; and when we cannot have separate schools, we are rejoiced to 
see the religious sects uniting in the support of a mixed one. When mixed 
schools are decided on by the parochial committees, the teacher is elected by 
the most numerous of the two sects ; or, if two teachers are required, one is 
elected by one sect, and the other by the other ; and in this case, each 
conducts the religious education of the children of his own sect. But 
when only one teacher is elected, the children of those parents who differ 
from him in religious belief, are permitted to be taken from the school 
during the religious lessons, on condition that their parents make arrange- 
ments for their religious instruction by their own minister."* 

A similar provision exists in Saxony, where there is a Cath- 
oKc king with a very large majority of Protestant subjects : 

" Difficulties arising from religious differences do not operate in Saxony to any 
great degree. There are not more than 30,000 Roman Catholics in the kingdom, 
and as these are dispersed, it does not often happen that sufficient numbers are 
to be found in any one locality to enable them to support a separate school for 
themselves. The Imo allotcs them to do this, however, whenever they are desirous 
to do so, and in this case, they elect their own separate school committee. But 
when they are not able to provide a separate school for themselves, they are 
obliged to send their children to the Protestant schools to learn reading, Avriting, 
spelling, history, and geography, and are allowed to remove them from the school 
whilst the religious instruction is being given, on condition, however, that they 
furnish the inspector with satisfactory proofs that they are providing elsewhere 
for the instruction of their children in their own religious doctrines. "f 

According to Mr. Ka}^, the educational system of Switzer- 
land has been highly developed, and eminently successful in 
diftusins; the benefits of education am on": the masses. We 
find, indeed, no express provision for separate schools m tlic 
Swiss school regulations ; but as some of the cantons are 
Catholic, and others Protestant, the practical operation of the 
system secures, in effect, what is equivalent to separate schools. 
Here, as elsewhere, religious instruction is deemed an essential 
element of Common School education, and provision is made 
for this department by the clergy of the different denomiua- 
tions, without infringing the rights of the parents : 

" Those children who differ in faith from the teacher, are always, throughout 
Switzerland, allowed to absent themselves from the classes whilst the religious 
lessons are being given, and are, in such cases, required by law to attend one of 
their own clergy, in order to receive doctrinal instruction from him. Even in 
Fribourg, a Canton which was at the time of my visit governed by priests, who 
were under the influence of the Jesuits, the children of Protestants were instruc- 
ted in the same schools and in the same classes with the children of the Roman- 
ists, and were allowed to absent themselves during the religious lessons."^ 

This liberal and happy state of things in the Catholic Can- 
ton of Fribourg, and one very similar in the Catholic Canton 
of Lucerne, proved too much for the Swiss radicals and Pro- 
testants ; who, animated with a holy hatred of " Romanists " 
and Jesuits, and instigated by their preachers, invaded these 
two Catholic Cantons, and swept away, along with the Jesuits, 
the glory of their educational establishments and the liberties 
of their people guarantied by the fundamental articles of the 
Swiss confederation. This was done soon after Mr. Kay's 
visit ; and all those atrocities were perpetrated by non-Catli- 

* IL 2e-'7. t II. 247. i II. 351. 



22 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

olics in tlie name of liberty ! We believe, b.owever, that a re- 
action lias lately taken place in Switzerland, and we consider 
it probable, that, tliougli tlie Jesuits have not yet been allowed 
to return, the Common School system is now in nearly the same 
condition in Switzerland as it was before the invasion. 

In the Catholic kingdom of Bavaria, while religious instruc- 
tion is carefully imparted in the Common Schools, the rights 
of dissenters are studiously guarded, and a most liberal policy 
is adopted towards the Protestant minority. The shools are, 
we believe, generally separate ; at least this is the case with 
the higher or normal schools. Hear our author : 

"At the time I visited Munich, the Jesuit party was in power. The ministers, 
however, showed the greatest willingness to furnish me v/ith all the information 
I required, and supplied me with all the statistics and documents I wished to 
procure. I visited a priest, who directed one of the large educational establish- 
ments in the city. He told me, that they had established eight normal colleges 
in Bavaria, for the education of teachers, and that two of these had been espe- 
cially set apart for the education of Protestant teachers. He seemed to make 
very light of all difficulties arising from religious differences, and spoke of edu- 
cation as a national work, which it was necessary to accomplish, by the joint 
efforts of all religious parties."* 

The same liberal spirit pervades the educational system of 
the small kingdom of Wurtemburg, and of the Grand Duchy 
of jBaden ; the former with a Protestant majority and king, and 
the latter with a Catholic majority but a Protestant Prince. In 
Wurtemburg, "three normal colleges had been founded; two 
for the education of Protestant teachers, and one for the educa- 
tion of Romanist teachers, "f In the Duchy of Baden, "there 
are three normal colleges for the education of teachers. One 
of them is for the education of the teachers of the Protestant 
schools, and contains seventy-six students, six of whom are 
Jews ; and the other two are for the education of Romanist teach- 
ers, and contains respectively eighty-five, and eighty students. "J 

In the Protestant kingdom of Holland, there are only two 
normal schools to 2,600,000 inhabitants. The children who 
frequent the Common Schools ordinarily pay a small amount 
monthly to the teacher ; but if the parents be poor or over- 
burdened with children, they receive a certificate from the 
superintendent to this effect, and their children are admitted 
free. Though in general the schools are mixed, they are often 
separate, especially in those localities which are principally 
Catholic or Protestant, as, for instance, in North Brabant, 
which is almost wholly Catholic.|[ Our author speaks as fol- 
lows of the working of the Dutch school system, and of the 
difference between it and those of other European countries 
of which we have spoken above : 

" The law of 1801 proclaims, as the great ond of all instruction, the exercise 
of the social and Christian virtues. In this respect it agrees with the law of 
Prussia and France ; but it differs from the law of those countries in the way by 

* II. 2!)3-'4. f II. 295. % II. 308-'9. 

|[ Our author's account of the Dutch s;;rsteDr\ is found in Yolum© IL, p. 440j. secj- 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 23 

which it attempts to attain this end. In France, and all the German countries, 
the schools are the auxiliaries, so to speak, of the chui'ches ; for whilst the schools 
are open to all the sects, yet the teacher is a man trained up in the particular 
doctrines of tlie majority of his pupils, and required to teach those doctrines 
during certain hours, the children who differ from him in religious belief being 
permitted to absent themselves from the religious lessons, on condition that their 
parents provided elsewhere for their religious instruction. But in Holland the 
teachers are required to give religious instruction to all the children, and to 
avoid most carefully touching on any of the grounds of controversy between the 
different sects."* 

"We doubt greatly whether the operation of this system, 
somewhat simihxr to our owa in the respect of religious teach- 
ing, is always satisfactory to the minority, whose religious 
rights may be easily infringed by bigoted inspectors or teach- 
ers. We have also reason to fear that the Catholic minority 
have many just grounds of complaint against the Protestant 
majority, on the score of intolerance and proselytism, in some 
of the Protestant Swiss Cantons, in some of the minor Ger- 
man Principalities, in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Han- 
over. Our author does not indeed say so, but rather paints 
the school systems of these several countries couleur de rose ; 
but our opinion rests on information derived from other 
sources. 

Mr. Kay says nothing of the educational system adopted in 
Spain, or in that portion of Italy which is not included in the 
Austrian Empire. But another distinguished Protestant Trav- 
eler, Samuel Laing, Esq., speaks as follows of education in Italy 
and in other Catholic countries : 

** In Catliolic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, the education of the com- 
mon people in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals, is at 
least as generally diffused, and as faithfully promoted by the clerical body, as in 
Scotland. It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance of 
the people, that the popish(!) priesthood of the present day seek to keep ahead 
of the intellectual progress of the community in Catholic lands ; and they might, 
perhaps, retort on our Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are, in their 
countries, at the head of the intellectual movement of the age? Education is in 
reality not only not repressed, but is encouraged by the popish(!) Church, and is 
a mighty instrument in its hands, and ably used. In every street in Rome, for 
instance, there are, at short distances, public primary schools for the education 
of the children of the lower and middle classes in tlie neighborhood. Rome, with 
a population of 158,678 souls, has 372 public Primary Schools, with 482 teachers, 
and 14,000 children attending them. Has Edinburg so many Schools for the edu- 
cation of tljose classes ? I doubt it. Berlin, witli a population about double that 
of Piome, has only 264 Schools. Rome has also her University, with an average 
.attendance of 66() students ; and the Papal States, with a population of two and 
a half millions, contain seven Universities, Prussia, with a population of four- 
teen millions, has but seven. "f 

Mr. Laing is himself a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, and 
his testimony is therefore unexceptionable, when in favor ot 
Catholic countries and against his own. According to him, — 
and he had examined the matter thoroughly, — Rome, the Cap- 
itol of Catholicism and the chief city of Italy, is far in advance 
of Edinburg, the Capitol of Scoth Presbyterianism, and of Ber- 
lin, the Capitol of German Protestantism, in the important matter 

■-'■ II. 444-'5. f " Notes of a Traveler," &c. 



24 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

of Common Schools, notwithstanding that the fashion is preva- 
lent among Protestant writers of sneering at Italy and exalting 
to the skies Scotland and Prussia, whenever it is a question of 
the education of the masses in Europe. Pacts are worth much 
more than interested declamation by partisan speakers or writers. 
In Catholic Spain, notwithstanding the unsettled political 
condition of the country for nearly half a century, much has 
been done for the education of the masses through Common 
Schools. An intelligent and enlightened countryman of ours, 
who passed a considerable time in Spain, and studied tho- 
roughly its history and institutions, bears honorable testimony 
to this fact. He is a Protestant, but is too honorable and in- 
telligent a gentleman to be warped from his propriety by pre- 
judice. From his recent work on Spain, we gather the fol- 
lowing facts :* 

" By the Constitution of 1812, the education of the people was made obligatory 
on the government. Title X. provided that Primary Schools should be opened 
in all the towns of the realm, and that Universities and other institutions for in- 
struction in literature, science, and the arts, should be established wherever it 
might be found expedient. 

•X- * * (< The appropriations called for by the budget of 1850 dedicated 
nearly Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars to the branch of instruction 
alone. Exclusive of private establishments of all classes, there are ten Univer- 
sities, and forty-nine Institutes under the direction of the government. The 
Primary and other Schools through the whole kingdom reach the number of about 
sixteen thousand. * * * By the best statistical estimates, it appears, that 
in 1850, the number of pupils in the Public Schools alone (exclusive of the Uni- 
versities and Institutes), was in the proportion of one to seventeen of the whole 
population."! 

This estimate does not probably take into the account the 
great number of parochial and other charitable Schools con- 
ducted by religious Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods, which are 
very numerous in all Catholic countries. All things consid- 
ered, Spain may be viewed as in a very fair condition in regard 
to Common School education ; while her numerous Univer- 
sities and higher Schools are justly celebrated and stand pre- 
eminent in the civilized world. 

It is a remarkable fact, well worthy our serious considera- 
tion, that whereas Protestants have nowhere any reasonable 
cause of complaint, in regard to the Common School system, 
in those countries where Catholics are in the majority ; on the 
contrary, Catholics are often aggrieved in their religious rights 
in communities where Protestants have the political ascend- 
ency ! A striking example of this is found in our own imme- 
diate neighborhood. In Lower Canada the Catholics are in an 
overwhelming majority, and in Lower Canada, Protestants are 
permitted to have separate schools for their children ; in Up- 
per Canada, on the contrary, where Protestants have the power, 
this equitable privilege of separate schools, such as exist in 

* " Spain, her Institutions, Politics, and Public Men. By S. T. Wallis. Bos* 
ton : Ticknor, Reid, and Fields. 1853." 

t PP. 293-4-5. 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 25 

Lower Canada, has been hitherto denied to Catholics, and a 
system of petty annoyance and proselytism has been adopted 
towards the latter, very similar to that under which the Cath- 
olic minority is now suffering under the operation of the 
School system in our own republic* 

, So far as Catholics are concerned, the system of Common 
Schools in this country is a monstrous engine of injustice and 
tyranny. Practically, it operates as a gigantic scheme for 
proselytism. By numerous secret appliances, and even some- 
times by open or imperfectly disguised machinery, the faith 
of our children is gradually undermined, and they are trained 
up to be ashamed of, and to abandon the religion of their 
fathers. It were bad enough, if this were all done with the 
money of others ; but when it is accomplished, at least in part, 
hy our own money, it is really atrocious. It is not to be con- 
cealed or denied, that the so-called literature of this country, 
the taste for which is fostered by our Common Schools, and 
which is constantly brought to bear on the training of our 
children, is not of a character to form their tender minds to 
wholesome moral principles, much less to solid Christian piety. 
In general, so far as it professes to be religious, it is anti-Cath- 
olic, and so far as it is secular, it is pagan. Some exceptions 
there probably are, but they are merely exceptions to the gen- 
eral rule, which is thereby confirmed. 

The frightful increase of immorality among the youth of the 
rising generation, especially in that portion of the republic 
where the Common School system is most fully carried out, — 
as in New England, — proves that there is something radically 
wrong in our educational system ; so very wrong indeed, that 
the future stability of our country is thereby greatly endan- 
gered. Reflecting men of all shades of opinion begin to find 
this out, and to seek after an adequate remedy to the con- 
stantly growing evil, which threatens, in fact, to overwhelm 
our noble country, and this at no distant day, under the sweep- 
ing torrent of popular iniquity. Our public newspapers are 
becoming mere chronicles of horrid crimes ; — of murders, 
adulteries, rapes, robberies, and the disgusting details of wide- 
spread licentiousness ! One of our Protestant religious papers 
discourses of this acknowledged evil, and points out the only 
effectual remed}^, in the following energetic language :t 

* For full particulars on this highly interesting subject, read the late "Con- 
troversy between Dr. Kyerson, Chief Superintendant of Education in Upper Can- 
ada, and Rev. J. M. Bruyere, Rector of St. Micliael's Cathedral, Toronto, on the 
appropriation of the Clergy Reserve Funds, Free Schools vs. State Schools," &c. 
This valuable brochure, containing 108 pages, contains a full and detailed exposi- 
tion of the whole subject of Common School education in Canada, and its facts 
and arguments will apply to our own circumstances. It should be in the hands 
of every lover of education ; for it exhibits both sides of a most important 
question. 

f Central Tresbyterian, quoted by Catholic Standard of New Orleans, of Octo- 
ber 4, 1867. 



26 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

" Does the Common School system prevent crime ? No. We must have some- 
thing beyond this bald, secular training for American youth. All right-minded 
men must rally and unite in giving the rising generation a Christian education. 
If I were at heart the rankest infidel, and yet laid claim to patriotism and philan- 
thropy, I would urge the State to this duty. The wisest heathen legislators, in 
the absence of a religion from heaven, labored to manufacture one for the people, 
as a restraint upon vice and crime ; and bad as were the characters of their fic- 
titious divinities, the sanctions of their religion were a great national blessing, 
compared with the philosophy of Epicurus, which turned oif from the woi'ld the 
inspections of the gods, and the retributions of the future state. And shall not 
legislators, in a Christian land, in the possession of a religion which is authenti- 
cated as Divine by every proof, and which is the only code of a perfect public 
and pi'ivate morality, endeavor to imbue the mind of youtli with its spirit, and 
form their morals by its standard ?" 

That the Common School system, as at present conducted 
in this country, does not impart to the rising generation a 
sound Christian education, we think every reflecting and im- 
partial man must admit. That it leaves the passions of youth 
almost unchecked, to grow stronger and stronger with the de- 
velopment of the physical strength, and that it thus inevitably 
leads to a fearful increase of crime among our youth, must be 
equally apparent to every intelligent and candid man who 
carefully watches the signs of the times. The managers of 
our Common Schools seem to act on the principle — or rather 
want of principle — of the indolent and unthrifty farmer, who 
carelessly allows the noxious weeds to grow up in his garden 
or field along with the good plants, and who discovers his sad 
mistake only when it is too late to remedy it, — after the good 
plants have been already dwarfed or smothered by the noxious 
growth. " Evil weeds grow apace," is a proverb based on ex- 
perience, and as true in morals as it is in agriculture. In no 
case is it more strikingly true, than in regard to the growth of 
the seeds which are implanted in the human mind and heart 
in the slippery period of childhood and youth. It is a well 
known fact, that from the first dawn of reason children are 
much more prone to evil than inclined to good. If the pas- 
sions be properly curbed in early childhood, they may be 
easily controlled in youth and manhood; if they be allowed 
free and unchecked development at that impressible period of 
life, they will soon acquire a strength of body and depth of 
root such as to resist all our eflbrts to eradicate them. A 
young cub may be easily managed ; when it has grown up 
unrestrained to the full dimensions of the bear, the task of 
controlling its evil propensities will be much more difficult, if 
not almost impossible. So it is with what is evil in the nature- 
of our children. Their passions are like wild beasts; they 
may be easily tamed while in their infancy, but become un- 
controllable and dangerous when fully developed. 

]Srow our system of Common School education proceeds pre- 
cisely on the principle of practically suffering the passions of 
childhood and youth to take almost any development which 
an evil nature may bring about ; trusting to more mature age 
and reflection to work a change for the better, after evil pro- 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 27 

peusities will have acquired an almost herculeau strength. A 
more thoroughly mischievous principle was never broached, 
nor attempted to be carried out, in a Christian community. 
It might be palliated, if not excused, among Pagans, on the 
score of ignorance ; among Christians it is wholly unpardon- 
able. For it is a cardinal principle of Christianity, held by all 
Protestant denominations who call themselves evangelical or 
orthodox, in common with the Catholic Church, that no 
eifectual curbing of passion, nor practical development of 
virtue can be brought about without the grace of God, through 
the religion taught by Jesus Christ and sealed by His precious 
blood. And yet this great principle is virtually ignored in our 
Common School system, which proposes to educate without 
religion ; — a thing unheard of scarcely even in Pagan, never 
before in Christian times. 

No wonder, then, that candid men of all shades of opinion 
have been compelled so often to deplore the horrible moral 
evils which have sprung from the natural working of a system 
so grievously defective in itself, and therefore necessarily so 
dangerous in its operation. Not long ago the public were 
startled by awful developments of depravity in one of the 
female public Schools of Boston; so horrible, indeed, as almost 
to stagger belief. The Boston Times published the whole oc- 
currence at the time ; but after creating great excitement for 
a few days or weeks, the matter was quietly hushed up, for 
fear of furnishing an argument to Catholics and injuring the 
character of the Common Schools in the very Capitol of the 
sj^stem ! Quite recently — during the early portion of the pres- 
ent year — other startling transactions have come to light in 
New York, involving the character of leading School Com- 
missioners, and of some of the principal female teachers in the 
Common Schools of our great commercial emporium. Tliese 
scandals became too notorious to be either blinked or smoth- 
ered, and accordingly several of the secular papers came out 
more or less openly to lash vice in high places. Among tliese 
prints, the N. Y. Sunday Dispatch and the N. Y. Tribune took 
the most active part. The former opens its article with the 
following startling caption and paragraph : 

"Prostitution ix the Public Schools. — Oli ! that we had gone to reside in 
the backwoods, oi" been buried among Hottentots, ere we had felt constrained to 
write tliat startling caption, and print what will be found beneath it. If we are 
to have our children instructed under the auspices of the abandoned of both sexes ; 
if our very schools are to be converted into instruments of harlotry ; if courtesans 
are 'to teach the young idea how to shoot,' we had better adopt the creed and 
practices of Mormons at once. We were anxious to disregard it ; we have tried 
to throw it overboard; we have endeavored to force a disbelief of its contents; 
we have made every effort to convince ourselves that such a horrible slate of affairs 
cannot possibl)/ exist; but all these endeavors have resulted in a conviction that it 
is our duty to bring tlie matter before the public. In short, the character of the 
source from whence the information comes, leaves no room for a doubt as to the 
sincerity and integrity of the writer." 

Then follows the communication, giving details which fully 



28 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

justify tlie caption of the article. The writer being vouched 
for as a reliable witness, we think our readers will pardon us 
for republishing the more material portion of his testimony, 
with the commentary of the Dispatch thereon : 

" It appears that the object of some who seek an election to the School Board, 
is not only to 'raise the wind,' whereby they may live in splendor and fare sump- 
tuously the remaining years of their lives after they had become politically de- 
funct, but also a desire to satisfy their carnal appetites at the- expense of the 
honor of some of the weak-minded engaged in teaching the female youth of the 
city. Does the public doubt that a School Commissioner or Trustee can succeed 
in obtaining a mistress from among the many female teachers employed? If so, 
doubt no longer, because, unfortunately for truth and virtue, and for the frail 
victims of their last, they are too often successful ! And for what consideration do 
these deluded creatures become the willing sacrifice to a scoundrel's beastliness ? 
Ambition. Aye, elevation from the position of a virtuous subordinate to that of a 
crime-steeped principal. In the ward in which I reside, there exists at this time 
an exemplification of the truth of my assertions, and the fact is as notorious as 
that the Commissioner, who holds a prominent position in one of the most impor- 
tant Committees of the Board, required all who made application to be appointed 
teachers, to submit themselves, not to an examination as to the capability of the 
applicant, but to a personal inspection by his fair inamorata! If the applicant's 
personal appearance pleased this quean, she received an appointment ; if not, the 
applicant was told that her 'examination had not proved satisfactory, and she 
could not be appointed.' The rem-edies that have been resorted to periodically, to rid 
ourselves of present, and to prevent future grievances, have proved abortive. "Whether 
because of being improperly administered, or that the reformers need the greater 
reformation, I am not sufi&ciently posted to offer a decided opinion. Yet true it 
is, should the character of a great majority of our officials be taken as the stand- 
a,rd of the honesty, integrity and virtue of our people. New York city would afford 
the best evidence of the truthfulness of the doctrine of 'total depravity,' and 
skeptics in that belief need no longer doubt. Were we, as a community, so hope- 
lessly depraved as we appear to be, the Almighty, should he determine our de- 
struction, would have no occasion to prolong our miserable existence by requiring 
us to produce the means of salvation, if our saviour must be such a one as he de- 
sired the inhabitants of the ill-fated cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to find." 

On the communication the Editor remarks as follows : 

" What answer can be made to this charge, or rather tliese charges ? The pu- 
rity of our children is too sacred a trust to be trifled with in the minutest partic- 
ular. We could pass in silence the many short-comings, not only of our present 
system of city school education, but of the manner in which it is administered. 
We could, perhaps, forgive the aggregate inefiiciencies of many of the Commis- 
sioners and Trustees, and submit in silence to the inutilities which are apparent 
from their incompetencies and rapacities ; but we cannot submit for one moment 
to even a bare suspicion that tlie children, for whose education the inhabitants 
of Manhattan Island are taxed over one million of dollars per annum, are contam- 
inated by the touch of lewd and lascivious preceptors supposed to be virtuous, or 
glared at with libidinous eyes by lechers in educational office. Tlie thought that 
the innocent young girls instructed at these schools may be subjected to these 
vile influences, is too terrifying and monstrous to be entertained a moment longer 
than it can be obliterated by prompt and decided inquisitorial action. AVhat evil 
could not be effected by the depraved mistress of a Commissioner — a mistress in 
charge, as principal, of a school of females ? How speciously and skillfully she 
could distill the leprous poison into the ears of the eldest for tlie advantage of 
herself and her official paramour! We shudder as these thoughts find utterance. 
Compared with this evil, ill-ventilation of the majority of the school-houses, the 
liability of many of them to take fire (we are told that the school-house at the 
corner of Grove and Hudson streets has been on fire two or three times within as 
many months), and the inadequacy of the methods of egress in case of sudden 
panics, caused by conflagrations or alarms, are matters of secondary importance." 

The Tribune enters into details to prove what is said or 
Mnted at by the Dispatch concerning the grievous mismanage- 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 29 

ment of the Kew York School Fund by the Commissioners, 
who, it would seem, have an eye to their own interests and 
that of their families, at least as much as to the public good in 
their management of the public Schools, and particularly in 
their disbursements of the School moneys.* 

So far as Kew York is concerned, the system of Common 
Schools has thus manifestly proved a failure. "While the peo- 
ple of that city are annually paying in taxes a Million op Dol- 
lars for the education of their children, the literary training, 
and especially the moral culture of the latter, is shamefully 
neglected by those who have the direction of the schools, the 
appointment of the teachers, and the expenditure of the school 
money. The annual expenditures go on increasing at an 
alarming rate, while the amount and sound moral ton'e of the 
education imparted seems to be as constantly on the decrease. 
''The increase in the current expenses of the Schools," says 
the Tribune, quoting the language of the annual Report, " be- 
tween 1854 and 1856 was 'more than forty-one percent.;'" 
yet no provision has as yet been made by the Board for the 
education of the more destitute classes ! Commenting on the 
latest Report of the Commissioners, the Tribune adds : " It is 
really refreshing to be informed that, while we are paying 
over one million Dollars per annum to elevate the masses by 
education, these ' laws must remain inoperative, until some 
system is matured by which such of these children as are desti- 
tute shall have schools opened to them ; for practically our 
ward schools are unavailable to that class.' Over one million 
a year for education, and ' practically ' no schools for the 30,- 
000 children who need them most ! "f 

It can hardly be said with justice that the above are merely 
isolated cases, and exceptions to the general rule. The evils 
complained of seem inherent in the system of State education 
itself, at least as it is practically administered. When State 
officials usurp the place of parents, and exclude the hallowing 
influence of Religion from the educational department, wha't 
better results can be expected ? It may rather be suspected, 
that with the studious efforts made to bolster up the system, 
half its practical iniquities are not generally known, and that 
those which leak out through indiscretion are palliated as far 
as possible, so as to save appearances ! 

If the Common Schools of the country be managed else- 
where as recent developments have proved to be the case in 
l^ew York and Boston, it may be fairly inferred, that there is 
something radically wrong in the whole system, or what 



* See the article of the Tribune in the N. Y. Freeman's Journal for February 
-lOth, 1858, and those of the Dispatch in the number of the same Journal for Feb- 
ruary 27th. This able weekly publication has done good service in the cause of 
free education, having been one of the first — if not the first — to enter the field. 

t Ibid. 



30 COMMON SCHOOLS. 

amounts to tlie same thing, in its practical working. From 
what we have said above, the entire organization of Common 
Schools in this country is based upon erroneous principles, 
subversive of parental rights and of the liberty of conscience ; 
and hence we need not be at all surprised to find that it is 
working badly, and that the public are beginning to discover 
its evil influence on the morals of the rising generation. How 
can an evil tree bring forth good fruit? The frightful increase 
of crime, especially in our large cities, where the system is most 
fully carried out, should of itself open the eyes of all men who 
have the good of the country at heart. The Tribune for April 
6th, 1858, fills nearly seven columns wuth accounts of crimes, 
proceedings before Coroner's inquests, &c.; and the leading 
papers of other cities are but little less copious in their dark 
record of frightful immorality, which, like a torrent, is sweep- 
ing over the country, and threatening our most cherished in- 
stitutions with utter destruction. 

"VVhither are we drifting ? Sad and gloomy, indeed, are our 
prospects for the future, when each generation is thus mani- 
festly deteriorating, when "faith is growing cold " day by day 
before our very eyes, and when virtue and religion — the bul- 
warks, aye, the very corner stones, of the social edifice — are 
thus clearly and palpably so fast dying out among the rising 
generation, upon whom rest the hopes of the future ! 

Yes, we may not longer deny it ; the great defect, the 
gnawing canker, the blighting curse of our educational sys- 
tem, is the absence from it of a wholesome religious instruc- 
tion. Under it, our children are practically reared up more 
like enlightened jMganSy preparing merely for this world, than 
as instructed Christians, well and thoroughly grounded in their 
faith, and making their novitiate for heaven. And such being 
the case, can we wonder, that when they grow up, and enter 
upon the busy scenes of life, they accordingly act more like 
pagans, than like Christians, and fill the land with crime and 
iniquity ? 

But how apply the remedy of full and thorough religious 
instruction, in a country so much divided as ours is by reli- 
gious difi^erences ? This difiiculty, not surely of our creation, 
but the necessary fruits of a sectarianism against which we 
have always entered our earnest protest, is indeed great, but, 
as we said above, it is not wholly insurmountable. The rem- 
edy is at once suggested by the mass of facts above stated, ex- 
hibiting the joint experience and the combined wisdom of 
civilized mankind in other countries much older than our 
own, many of which are similarly situated in regard to reli- 
gious differences. Let us profit by the practical wisdom of 
Europe, whether Catholic or Protestant, and let us have the 
liberality, the justice, and the moral courage to do what other 
nations have so wisely and so successfully accomplished. 
Surely we would not be behind European monarchies in lib- 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 31 

erality, in regard for the conscientious sentiments of those who 
dilFcr from us in religious belief, or in the practical mainte- 
nance of the rights secured to all of us, under our matchless 
Constitution, freely to worship God according to the dictates 
of our conscience ! 

Education, like all other human pursuits, should he free, and 
a matter of free and general competition, leaving religion un- 
trammeled. Let the State establish a system of Common 
Schools, if it will, but let it not infringe either parental or re- 
ligious rights. Let it even enact laws, if it will, requiring all 
parents to educate their children, — as is the case throughout 
Germany, — either in the Common Schools, or in some others 
of their own choosing. Let it levy an equitable tax upon all ; 
but let it guarantee to all the benefit of the tax. Let it not 
adopt a School system, which practically closes its doors 
against the children of any among the tax-payers. Let it 
make religious instruction, to be given in detail by the accred- 
ited ministers of the diiferent religious denominations, an es- 
sential element of the educational system. Let it, like almost 
all other Chrisiian countries, whether Catholic or Protestant, 
acknowledge ilte right in every denomination of Christians to 
establish separate schools, Avhenever they are in sufficient 
numbers in particular localities to warrant them in sustaining 
such schools. Let these separate schools be erected and sus- 
tained, like the rest of the Common Schools, and be subject 
to the inspection of State visitors, in regard to the standard of 
education therein adopted and carried out, but entirely /r^e in 
the department of religious instruction. Let the provision be 
general for all religious denominations ; — for Catholics ask 
and would accept of no favor or exemption. Let the children 
taught in these separate or parochial schools, up to the stand- 
ard adopted by the school law, as applied and enforced by the 
school visitors or superintendents, receive their quota of the 
Common School fund, created by taxing all, in proportion to 
the number of children so taught. This would be fair and 
satisfactory to alb 

If this equitable system be adopted in this country, as it has 
been adopted throughout almost all the nations of Europe, we 
have not a doubt of its full and complete success. It is, in 
fact, the only eft'ectual remedy to the crying evils of our pres- 
ent School system. It may plead the experience of the past 
and the wisdom of the present, in its favor. It w^ould tend to 
diminish the manifold evils of sectarianism, and would awaken 
a wholesome competition among the difterent classes of our 
population. It would guarantee religious liberty to every de- 
nomination of Christians, in accordance with the letter and the 
spirit of our noble Constitution. It would greatly increase, in- 
stead of diminishing, the number of scholars frequenting the 
public schools, because it would remove a crying injustice, 
and open wide the doors of our schools to all children. In 



COMMOX SCHOOLS. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



our cities particularly, where, under the prese 
a fourth to one-half of all the children of a si 
tend school are shut out of the public schools, i ^ 029 445 ocn o 
the average attendance by fully that proportion. -^^^J, ^.^^.^, 
and this is an argument specially adapted to the comprehen- 
sion of our age and country, — it would render education 
cheaper, — for "competition is the life of business." 

This wise and equitable system has been tried elsewhere, 
and, as we have already shown, the experiment has been 
crowned with the most complete success ; it is, to say the 
least, well worthy of a trial in our own happy and prosperous 
republic. 



PHINTEO sr J. 



Hollinger Cori 
pH 8.5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 445 860 8 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



